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Salute to a nation of war poets

Ewart Alan Mackintosh, who died on a First World War battlefield, will be commemorated on a new poetry trail

A powerful and melancholy verse earned soldier Charles Hamilton Sorley, 20, a reputation as one of the great poets of the Great War. He was killed by a German sniper at the Battle of Loos in 1915 and his poem, When You See Millions of the Mouthless Dead, was discovered tucked away inside his kitbag.

Over the course of a century, in common with many other Scots wartime writers, his work has been largely forgotten. However, a project is taking shape this year which should help to win new admirers for these lost poets by installing a network of memorial plaques that could help us make sense of “the war to end all wars”.

The tributes, stretching from the Highlands to southern Scotland, will honour…

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